i drove twice around the foundry, looking for signs of some erstwhile german presence. i drove past the row houses.

they were set on a steep hill, narrow-fronted frame houses, a climbing line of pitched roofs. i drove past the busterminal, through the beating rain. it took a while to find the motel, a one-story building set against the concrete pierof an elevated roadway. it was called the roadway motel.

transient pleasures, drastic measures.

the area was deserted, a spray-painted district of warehouses and light industry. the motel had nine or ten rooms, alldark, no cars out front. i drove past three times, studying the scene, and parked half a block away, in the rubble underthe roadway. then i walked back to the motel. those were the first three elements in my plan.

here is my plan. drive past the scene several times, park some distance from the scene, go back on foot, locate mr.

gray under his real name or an alias, shoot him three times in the viscera for maximum pain, clear the weapon ofprints, place the weapon in the victim's staticky hand, find a crayon or lipstick tube and scrawl a cryptic suicide noteon the full-length mirror, take the victim's supply of dylar tablets, slip back to the car, proceed to the expresswayentrance, head east toward blacksmith, get off at the old river road, park stover's car in old man treadwell's garage,shut the garage door, walk home in the rain and the fog.

elegant. my airy mood returned. i was advancing in consciousness. i watched myself take each separate step. witheach separate step, i became aware of processes, components, things relating to other things. water fell to earth indrops. i saw things new.

there was an aluminum awning over the office door. on the door itself were little plastic letters arranged in slots tospell out a message. the message was: nu mish boot zup ko.

gibberish but high-quality gibberish. i made my way along the wall, looking through the windows. my plan was this.

stand at the edges of windows with my back to the wall, swivel my head to look peripherally into rooms. somewindows were bare, some had blinds or dusty shades. i could make out the rough outlines of chairs or beds in thedark rooms. trucks rumbled overhead. in the next to last unit, there was the scantest flicker of light. i stood at theedge of the window, listening. i swiveled my head, looked into the room out of the corner of my right eye. a figuresat in a low armchair looking up at the flickering light. i sensed i was part of a network of structures and channels. iknew the precise nature of events. i was moving closer to things in their actual state as i approached a violence, asmashing intensity. water fell in drops, surfaces gleamed.

it occurred to me that i did not have to knock. the door would be open. i gripped the knob, eased the door open,slipped into the room. stealth. it was easy. everything would be easy. i stood inside the room, sensing things, notingthe room tone, the dense air. information rushed toward me, rushed slowly, incrementally. the figure was male, ofcourse, and sat sprawled in the short-legged chair. he wore a hawaiian shirt and budweiser shorts. plastic sandalsdangled from his feet. the dumpy chair, the rumpled bed, the industrial carpet, the shabby dresser, the sad greenwalls and ceiling cracks. the tv floating in the air, in a metal brace, pointing down at him.

he spoke first, without taking his eyes from the flickering screen.

"are you heartsick or soulsick?"i stood against the door.

"you're mink," i said.

in time he looked at me, looked at the large friendly figure with the slumped shoulders and forgettable face.

"what kind of name is willie mink?" i said.

"it's a first name and a last name. same as anybody."did he speak with an accent? his face was odd, concave, forehead and chin jutting. he was watching tv without thesound.

"some of these sure-footed bighorns have been equipped with radio transmitters," he said.

i could feel the pressure and density of things. so much was happening. i sensed molecules active in my brain,moving along neural pathways.

"you're here for some dylar, of course.""of course. what else?""what else? rid the fear.""rid the fear. clear the grid.""clear the grid. that's why they come to me."this was my plan. enter unannounced, gain his confidence, wait for an unguarded moment, take out the zumwalt,shoot him three times in the viscera for maximum slowness of agony, put the gun in his hand to suggest a lonelyman's suicide, write semi-coherent things on the mirror, leave stover's car in treadwell's garage.

"by coming in here, you agree to a certain behavior," mink said.

"what behavior?""room behavior. the point of rooms is that they're inside. no one should go into a room unless he understands this.

people behave one way in rooms, another way in streets, parks and airports. to enter a room is to agree to a certainkind of behavior. it follows that this would be the kind of behavior that takes place in rooms. this is the standard, asopposed to parking lots and beaches. it is the point of rooms. no one should enter a room not knowing the point.

there is an unwritten agreement between the person who enters a room and the person whose room had been entered,as opposed to open-air theaters, outdoor pools. the purpose of a room derives from the special nature of a room. aroom is inside. this is what people in rooms have to agree on, as differentiated from lawns, meadows, fields,orchards."i agreed completely. it made perfect sense. what was i here for if not to define, fix in my sights, take aim at? i hearda noise, faint, monotonous, white.

"to begin your project sweater," he said, "first ask yourself what type sleeve will meet your needs."his nose was flat, his skin the color of a planter's peanut. what is the geography of a spoon-shaped face? was hemelanesian, polynesian, indonesian, nepalese, surinamese, dutch-chinese? was he a composite? how manypeople came here for dylar? where was surinam? how was my plan progressing?

i studied the palm-studded print of his loose shirt, the budweiser pattern repeated on the surface of his bermudashorts. the shorts were too big. the eyes were half closed. the hair was long and spiky-. he was sprawled in theattitude of a stranded air traveler, someone long since defeated by the stale waiting, the airport babble. i began to feelsorry for babette. this had been her last hope for refuge and serenity, this weary pulse of a man, a common pushernow, spiky-haired, going mad in a dead motel.

auditory scraps, tatters, whirling specks. a heightened reality. a denseness that was also a transparency. surfacesgleamed. water struck the roof in spherical masses, globules, splashing drams. close to a violence, close to a death.

"the pet under stress may need a prescription diet," he said.

of course he hadn't always been like this. he'd been a project manager, dynamic, hard-driving. even now i could seein his face and eyes the faltering remains of an enterprising shrewdness and intelligence. he reached into his pocket,took a handful of white tablets, tossed them in the direction of his mouth. some entered, some flew past. thesaucer-shaped pills. the end of fear.

"where are you from originally, if i can call you willie?"he lapsed into thought, trying to recall. i wanted to put him at ease, get him to talk about himself, about dylar. partand parcel of my plan. my plan was this. swivel my head to look into rooms, put him at his ease, wait for anunguarded moment, blast him in the gut three times for maximum efficiency of pain, take his dylar, get off at theriver road, shut the garage door, walk home in the rain and the fog.

"i wasn't always as you see me now.""that's exactly what i was thinking.""i was doing important work. i envied myself. i was literally embarked. death without fear is an everyday thing. youcan live with it. i learned english watching american tv. i had american sex the first time in port-o-san, texas.

everything they said was true. i wish i could remember.""you're saying there is no death as we know it without the element of fear. people would adjust to it, accept itsinevitability.""dylar failed, reluctantly. but it will definitely come. maybe now, maybe never. the heat from your hand willactually make the gold-leafing stick to the wax paper.""there will eventually be an effective medication, you're saying. a remedy for fear.""followed by a greater death. more effective, productwise. this is what the scientists don't understand, scrubbingtheir smocks with woolite. not that i have anything personal against death from our vantage point high atopmetropolitan county stadium.""are you saying death adapts? it eludes our attempts to reason with it?"this was similar to something murray had once said. murray had also said, "imagine the visceral jolt, watching youropponent bleed in the dust. he dies, you live."close to a death, close to the slam of metal projectiles on flesh, the visceral jolt. i watched mink ingest more pills,throwing them at his face, sucking them like sweets, his eyes on the flickering screen. waves, rays, coherent beams.

i saw things new.

"just between you and i," he said, "i eat this stuff like candy.""i was just thinking that.""how much do you want to buy?""how much do i need?""i see you as a heavyset white man about fifty. does this describe your anguish? i see you as a person in a gray jacketand light brown pants. tell me how correct i am. to convert fahrenheit to celsius, this is what you do."there was a silence. things began to glow. the dumpy chair, the shabby dresser, the rumpled bed. the bed wasequipped with casters. i thought, this is the grayish figure of my torment, the man who took my wife. did she wheelhim around the room as he sat on the bed popping pills? did each lie prone along one side of the bed, reaching an armdown to paddle? did they make the bed spin with their lovemaking, a froth of pillows and sheets above the smallwheels on swivels? look at him now, glowing in the dark, showing a senile grin.

"i barely forget the times i had in this room," he said, "before i became misplaced. there was a woman in a ski mask,which her name escapes me at the moment. american sex, let me tell you, this is how i learned my english."the air was rich with extrasensory material. nearer to death, nearer to second sight. a smashing intensity. iadvanced two steps toward the middle of the room. my plan was elegant. advance gradually, gain his confidence,take out the zumwalt, fire three bullets at his midsection for maximum visceral agony, clear the weapon of prints,write suicidal cult messages on the mirrors and walls, take his supply of dylar, slip back to the car, drive to theexpressway entrance, head east toward blacksmith, leave stover's car in treadwell's garage, walk home in the rainand the fog.

he gobbled more pills, flung others down the front of his budweiser shorts. i advanced one step. there were crackeddylar tablets all over the fire-retardant carpet. trod upon, stomped. he tossed some tablets at the screen. the set hada walnut veneer with silvery hardware. the picture rolled badly.

"now i am picking up my metallic gold tube," he said. "using my palette knife and my odorless turp, i will thickenthe paint on my palette."i recalled babette's remarks about the side effects of the medication. i said, as a test, "falling plane."he looked at me, gripping the arms of the chair, the first signs of panic building in his eyes.

"plunging aircraft," i said, pronouncing the words crisply, authoritatively.

he kicked off his sandals, folded himself over into the recommended crash position, head well forward, handsclasped behind his knees. he performed the maneuver automatically, with a double-jointed collapsible dexterity,throwing himself into it, like a child or a mime. interesting. the drug not only caused the user to confuse words withthe things they referred to; it made him act in a somewhat stylized way. i watched him slumped there, trembling.

this was my plan. look peripherally into rooms, enter unannounced, reduce him to trembling, gut-shoot himmaximally three times, get off at the river road, shut the garage door.

i took another step toward the middle of the room. as the tv picture jumped, wobbled, caught itself in snarls, minkappeared to grow more vivid. the precise nature of events. things in their actual state. eventually he worked himselfout of the deep fold, rising nicely, sharply outlined against the busy air. white noise everywhere.

"containing iron, niacin and riboflavin. i learned my english in airplanes. it's the international language of aviation.

why are you here, white man?" "to buy.""you are very white, you know that?" "it's because i'm dying." "this stuff fix you up." "i'll still die.""but it won't matter, which comes to the same thing. some of these playful dolphins have been equipped with radiotransmitters. their far-flung wanderings may tell us things."i continued to advance in consciousness. things glowed, a secret life rising out of them. water struck the roof inelongated orbs, splashing drams. i knew for the first time what rain really was. i knew what wet was. i understood theneurochemistry of my brain, the meaning of dreams (the waste material of premonitions). great stuff everywhere,racing through the room, racing slowly. a richness, a density. i believed everything. i was a buddhist, a jain, a duckriver baptist. my only sadness was babette, having to kiss a scooped-out face.

"she wore the ski mask so as not to kiss my face, which she said was un-american. i told her a room is inside. do notenter a room not agreeing to this. this is the point, as opposed to emerging coastlines, continental plates. or you caneat natural grains, vegetables, eggs, no fish, no fruit. or fruit, vegetables, animal proteins, no grains, no milk. or lotsof soybean milk for b-12 and lots of vegetables to regulate insulin release but no meat, no fish, no fruit. or whitemeat but no red meat. or b-12 but no eggs. or eggs but no grains. there are endless workable combinations."i was ready to kill him now. but i didn't want to compromise the plan. the plan was elaborate. drive past the sceneseveral times, approach the motel on foot, swivel my head to look peripherally into rooms, locate mr. gray under hisreal name, enter unannounced, gain his confidence, advance gradually, reduce him to trembling, wait for anunguarded moment, take out the .25-caliber zumwalt automatic, fire three bullets into his viscera for maximumslowness, depth and intensity of pain, wipe the weapon clear of prints, place the weapon in the victim's hand tosuggest the trite and predictable suicide of a motel recluse, smear crude words on the walls in the victim's own bloodas evidence of his final cult-related frenzy, take his supply of dylar, slip back to the car, take the expressway toblacksmith, leave stover's car in treadwell's garage, shut the garage door, walk home in the rain and the fog.

i advanced into the area of flickering light, out of the shadows, seeking to loom. i put my hand in my pocket, grippedthe firearm. mink watched the screen. i said to him gently, "hail of bullets." keeping my hand in my pocket.

he hit the floor, began crawling toward the bathroom, looking back over his shoulder, childlike, miming, usingprinciples of heightened design but showing real terror, brilliant cringing fear. i followed him into the toilet, passingthe full-length mirror where he'd undoubtedly posed with babette, his shaggy member dangling like a ruminant's.

"fusillade," i whispered.

he tried to wriggle behind the bowl, both arms over his head, his legs tight together. i loomed in the doorway,conscious of looming, seeing myself from mink's viewpoint, magnified, threatening. it was time to tell him who iwas. this was part of my plan. my plan was this. tell him who i am, let him know the reason for his slow andagonizing death. i revealed my name, explained my relationship with the woman in the ski mask.

he put his hands over his crotch, tried to fit himself under the toilet tank, behind the bowl. the intensity of the noisein the room was the same at all frequencies. sound all around. i took out the zumwalt. great and nameless emotionsthudded on my chest. i knew who 1 was in the network of meanings. water fell to earth in drops, causing surfaces togleam. i saw things new.

mink took one hand from his crotch, grabbed more tablets from his pocket, hurled them toward his open mouth. hisface appeared at the end of the white room, a white buzz, the inner surface of a sphere. he sat up, tearing open hisshirt pocket to find more pills. his fear was beautiful. he said to me, "did you ever wonder why, out of thirty-twoteeth, these four cause so much trouble? i'll be back with the answer in a minute."i fired the gun, the weapon, the pistol, the firearm, the automatic. the sound snowballed in the white room, adding onreflected waves. i watched blood squirt from the victim's midsection. a delicate arc. i marveled at the rich color,sensed the color-causing action of nonnucleated cells. the flow diminished to a trickle, spread across the tile floor. isaw beyond words. i knew what red was, saw it in terms of dominant wavelength, luminance, purity. mink's painwas beautiful, intense.

i fired a second shot just to fire it, relive the experience, hear the sonic waves layering through the room, feel the jolttravel up my arm. the bullet struck him just inside the right hipbone. a claret stain appeared on his shorts and shirt.

i paused to notice him. he sat wedged between the toilet bowl and wall, one sandal missing, eyes totally white. i triedto see myself from mink's viewpoint. looming, dominant, gaining life-power, storing up life-credit. but he was toofar gone to have a viewpoint.

it was going well. i was pleased to see how well it was going. the trucks rumbled overhead. the shower curtainsmelled of mildewed vinyl. a richness, a smashing intensity. i approached the sitting figure, careful not to step inblood, leave revealing prints. i took out my handkerchief, wiped the weapon clean, placed it in mink's hand,cautiously removing the handkerchief, painstakingly wrapping his bony fingers, one by one, around the stock,delicately working his index finger through the trigger guard. he was foaming, a little, at the mouth. i stepped backto survey the remains of the shattering moment, the scene of squalid violence and lonely death at the shadowy fringesof society. this was my plan. step back, regard the squalor, make sure things were correctly placed.

mink's eyes dropped out of his skull. they gleamed, briefly. he raised his hand and pulled the trigger, shooting me inthe wrist.

the world collapsed inward, all those vivid textures and connections buried in mounds of ordinary stuff. i wasdisappointed. hurt, stunned and disappointed. what had happened to the higher plane of energy in which i'd carriedout my scheme? the pain was searing. blood covered my forearm, wrist and hand. i staggered back, moaning,watching blood drip from the tips of my fingers. i was. troubled and confused. colored dots appeared at the edge ofmy field of vision. familiar little dancing specks. the extra dimensions, the super perceptions, were reduced tovisual clutter, a whirling miscellany, meaningless.

"and this could represent the leading edge of some warmer air," mink said.

i looked at him. alive. his lap a puddle of blood. with the restoration of the normal order of matter and sensation, ifelt i was seeing him for the first time as a person. the old human muddles and quirks were set flowing again.

compassion, remorse, mercy. but before i could help mink, i had to do some basic repair work on myself. onceagain i took out my handkerchief, managed with my right hand and my teeth to tie it firmly just above the bullet holein my left wrist, or between the wound and the heart. then i sucked at the wound briefly, not knowing quite why, andspat out the resulting blood and pulp. the bullet had made a shallow penetration and deflected away. using my goodhand, i grabbed mink by his bare foot and dragged him across the blood-dappled tile, the gun still clutched in his fist.

there was something redemptive here. dragging him foot-first across the tile, across the medicated carpet, throughthe door and into the night. something large and grand and scenic. is it better to commit evil and attempt to balanceit with an exalted act than to live a resolutely neutral life? i know i felt virtuous, i felt blood-stained and stately,dragging the badly wounded man through the dark and empty street.

the rain had stopped. i was shocked at the amount of blood we were leaving behind. his, mainly. the sidewalk wasstriped. an interesting cultural deposit. he reached up feebly, dropped more dylar down his throat. the gun handdragged.

we reached the car. mink kicked free, involuntarily, his body flopping and spinning, a little fishlike. he made spentand gasping noises, short of oxygen. i decided to attempt mouth-to-mouth. i leaned over him, used my thumb andindex finger to clothes-pin his nose and then tried to work my face down into his. the awkwardness and grimintimacy of the act made it seem all the more dignified under the circumstances. all the larger, more generous. i kepttrying to reach his mouth in order to breathe powerful gusts of air into his lungs. my lips were gathered, ready tofunnel. his eyes followed me down. perhaps he thought he was about to be kissed. i savored the irony.

his mouth was awash in regurgitated dylar foam, half chewed tablets, flyspeck shards of polymer. i felt large andselfless, above resentment. this was the key to selflessness, or so it seemed to me as i knelt over the wounded man,exhaling rhythmically in the littered street beneath the roadway. get past disgust. forgive the foul body. embrace itwhole. after some minutes of this, i felt him come around, take regular breaths. i continued to hover just above him,our mouths almost touching.

"who shot me?" he said.

"you did.""who shot you?""you did. the gun is in your hand.""what was the point i was trying to make?""you were out of control. you weren't responsible. i forgive you.""who are you, literally?""a passerby. a friend. it doesn't matter.""some millipedes have eyes, some do not."with much effort, many false starts, i got him into the back of the car, where he stretched out moaning. it was nolonger possible to tell whether the blood on my hands and clothes was his or mine. my humanity soared. i started upthe car. the pain in my arm was a throb, less fiery now. i drove one-handed through the empty streets, looking for ahospital. iron city lying-in. mother of mercy. commiseration and rapport. i would take whatever they had, even anemergency ward in the worst part of town. this is where we belonged, after all, with the multiple slash wounds, theentry and exit wounds, the blunt instrument wounds, the traumas, overdoses, acute deliriums. the only traffic was amilk van, a bakery van, some heavy trucks. the sky began to lighten. we came to a place with a neon cross over theentrance. it was a three-story building that might have been a pentecostal church, a day-care center, worldheadquarters for some movement of regimented youth.

there was a wheelchair ramp, which meant i could drag mink to the front door without banging his head on theconcrete steps. i got him out of the car, clutched his sleek foot and moved up the ramp. he held one hand at hismidsection to stanch the flow. the gun hand dragged behind. dawn. there was a spaciousness to this moment, anepic pity and compassion. having shot him, having led him to believe he'd shot himself, i felt i did honor to both ofus, to all of us, by merging our fortunes, physically leading him to safety. i took long slow strides, pulling his weight.

it hadn't occurred to me that a man's attempts to redeem himself might prolong the elation he felt when he committedthe crime he now sought to make up for.

i rang the bell. in a matter of seconds, someone appeared at the door. an old woman, a nun, black-habited,black-veiled, leaning on a cane.

"we're shot," i said, lifting my wrist in the air.

"we see a lot of that here," she answered matter-of-factly, in an accented voice, turning to go back inside.

i dragged mink across the entranceway. the place appeared to be a clinic. there were waiting rooms, screenedcubicles, doors marked x-ray, eye test. we followed the old nun to the trauma room. two orderlies showed up,great squat men with sumo physiques. they lifted mink onto a table and tore away his clothes in neat short practicedstrokes.

"inflated-adjusted real income," he said.

more nuns arrived, rustling, ancient, speaking german to each other. they carried transfusion equipment, wheeled intrays of glinting implements. the original nun approached mink to remove the gun from his hand. i watched her tossit in a desk drawer that held about ten other handguns and half a dozen knives. there was a picture on the wall of jackkennedy holding hands with pope john xxiii in heaven. heaven was a partly cloudy place.

the doctor arrived, an elderly man in a shabby three-piece suit. he spoke german to the nuns and studied mink'sbody, which was now partly clad in sheets.

"no one knows why the sea birds come to san miguel," willie said.

i was growing fond of him. the original nun took me into a cubicle to work on my wound. i started to give her aversion of the shootings but she showed no interest. i told her it was an old gun with feeble bullets.

"such a violent country.""have you been in germantown long?" i said.

"we are the last of the germans.""who lives here now, mostly?""mostly no one," she said.

more nuns walked by, heavy rosaries swinging from their belts. i found them a merry sight, the kind ofhomogeneous presence that makes people smile at airports.

i asked my nun her name. sister hermann marie. i told her i knew some german, trying to gain her favor, as i alwaysdid with medical personnel of any kind, at least in the early stages, before my fear and distrust overwhelmed anyhope i might have had in maneuvering for advantage.

"gut, besser, best," i said.

a smile appeared on her seamed face. i counted for her, pointed to objects and gave their names. she nodded happily,cleaning out the wound and wrapping the wrist in sterile pads. she said i would not need a splint and told me thedoctor would write a prescription for antibiotics. we counted to ten together.

two more nuns appeared, wizened and creaky. my nun said something to them and soon all four of us werecharmingly engaged in a childlike dialogue. we did colors, items of clothing, parts of the body. i felt much more atease in this german-speaking company than i had with the hitler scholars. is there something so innocent in therecitation of names that cod is pleased?

sister hermann marie applied finishing touches to the bullet wound. from my chair i had a clear view of the pictureof kennedy and the pope in heaven. i had a sneaking admiration for the picture. it made me feel good, sentimentallyrefreshed. the president still vigorous after death. the pope's homeliness a kind of radiance. why shouldn't it be true?

why shouldn't they meet somewhere, advanced in time, against a layer of fluffy cumulus, to clasp hands? whyshouldn't we all meet, as in some epic of protean gods and ordinary people, aloft, well-formed, shining?

i said to my nun, "what does the church say about heaven today? is it still the old heaven, like that, in the sky?"she turned to glance at the picture.

"do you think we are stupid?" she said.

i was surprised by the force of her reply.

'then what is heaven, according to the church, if it isn't the abode of god and the angels and the souls of those whoare saved?""saved? what is saved? this is a dumb head, who would come in here to talk about angels. show me an angel.

please. i want to see.""but you're a nun. nuns believe these things. when we see a nun, it cheers us up, it's cute and amusing, beingreminded that someone still believes in angels, in saints, all the traditional things.""you would have a head so dumb to believe this?""it's not what i believe that counts. it's what you believe.""this is true," she said. "the nonbelievers need the believers. they are desperate to have someone believe. but showme a saint. give me one hair from the body of a saint."she leaned toward me, her stark face framed in the black veil. i began to worry.

"we are here to take care of sick and injured. only this. you would talk about heaven, you must find another place.""other nuns wear dresses," i said reasonably. "here you still wear the old uniform. the habit, the veil, the clunkyshoes. you must believe in tradition. the old heaven and hell, the latin mass. the pope is infallible, god created theworld in six days. the great old beliefs. hell is burning lakes, winged demons.""you would come in bleeding from the street and tell me six days it took to make a universe?""on the seventh he rested.""you would talk of angels? here?""of course here. where else?"i was frustrated and puzzled, close to shouting.

"why not armies that would fight in the sky at the end of the world?""why not? why are you a nun anyway? why do you have that picture on the wall?"she drew back, her eyes filled with contemptuous pleasure.

"it is for others. not for us.""but that's ridiculous. what others?""all the others. the others who spend their lives believing that we still believe. it is our task in the world to believethings no one else takes seriously. to abandon such beliefs completely, the human race would die. this is why weare here. a tiny minority. to embody old things, old beliefs. the devil, the angels, heaven, hell. if we did not pretendto believe these things, the world would collapse.""pretend?""of course pretend. do you think we are stupid? get out from here.""you don't believe in heaven? a nun?""if you don't, why should i?""if you did, maybe i would.""if i did, you would not have to.""all the old muddles and quirks," i said. "faith, religion, life everlasting. the great old human gullibilities. are yousaying you don't take them seriously? your dedication is a pretense?""our pretense is a dedication. someone must appear to believe. our lives are no less serious than if we professed realfaith, real belief. as belief shrinks from the world, people find it more necessary than ever that someone believe.

wild-eyed men in caves. nuns in black. monks who do not speak. we are left to believe. fools, children. those whohave abandoned belief must still believe in us. they are sure that they are right not to believe but they know beliefmust not fade completely. hell is when no one believes. there must always be believers. fools, idiots, those whohear voices, those who speak in tongues. we are your lunatics. we surrender our lives to make your nonbeliefpossible. you are sure that you are right but you don't want everyone to think as you do. there is no truth withoutfools. we are your fools, your madwomen, rising at dawn to pray, lighting candles, asking statues for good health,long life.""you've had long life. maybe it works."she rattled out a laugh, showing teeth so old they were nearly transparent.

"soon no more. you will lose your believers.""you've been praying for nothing all these years?""for the world, dumb head.""and nothing survives? death is the end?""do you want to know what i believe or what i pretend to believe?""i don't want to hear this. this is terrible.""but true.""you're a nun. act like one.""we take vows. poverty, chastity, obedience. serious vows. a serious life. you could not survive without us.""there must be some of you who aren't pretending, who truly believe. i know there are. centuries of belief don't justpeter out in a few years. there were whole fields of study devoted to these subjects. angelology. a branch oftheology just for angels. a science of angels. great minds debated these things. there are great minds today. theystill debate, they still believe.""you would come in from the street dragging a body by the foot and talk about angels who live in the sky. get outfrom here."she said something in german. i failed to understand. she spoke again, at some length, pressing her face towardmine, the words growing harsher, wetter, more guttural. her eyes showed a terrible delight in my incomprehension.

she was spraying me with german. a storm of words. she grew more animated as the speech went on. a gleefulvehemence entered her voice. she spoke faster, more expressively. blood vessels flared in her eyes and face. i beganto detect a cadence, a measured beat. she was reciting something, i decided. litanies, hymns, catechisms. themysteries of the rosary perhaps. taunting me with scornful prayer.

the odd thing is i found it beautiful.

when her voice grew weak, i left the cubicle and wandered around until i found the old doctor. "herr doktor," icalled, feeling like someone in a movie. he activated his hearing aid. i got my prescription, asked if willie minkwould be all right. he wouldn't, at least not for a while. but he wouldn't die either, which gave him the edge on me.

the drive home was uneventful. i left the car in stover's driveway. the rear seat was covered with blood. there wasblood on the steering wheel, more blood on the dashboard and door handles. the scientific study of the culturalbehavior and development of man. anthropology.

i went upstairs and watched the kids a while. all asleep, fumbling through their dreams, eyes rapidly moving beneathclosed lids. i got into bed next to babette, fully dressed except for my shoes, somehow knowing she wouldn't think itstrange. but my mind kept racing, i couldn't sleep. after a while i went down to the kitchen to sit with a cup of coffee,feel the pain in my wrist, the heightened pulse.

there was nothing to do but wait for the next sunset, when the sky would ring like bronze.